Why is biology interesting?
October 6th 2009 10:40
This week, as I'm trying to ease my way back into writing, I thought I'd just write rather than presenting the latest discoveries in biology.
Well, a question I've been asked is why I find biology interesting. First I'd like to say that anyone who thinks that biology is "boring" is a mother-fucker who should immediately go and remove his testicles (I say "he", because only a male would say something so fucking stupid). People from all walks of life find biology fascinating. They might not know a heck of a lot about it, but they're capable of being transfixed by David Attenborough, for example, talking about the wonders of insect reproduction or the dynamics of lion prides. So this is something that people just find interesting, whatever their background. WHAT exactly is it, then, that people find interesting about biology? I suppose that it's the sheer variety of mechanisms, the overwhelming display of ingenuity exhibited by nature, and the intricacy of said mechanisms and ingenuity. Those are exactly the things that fascinate me, with one qualification: these things find their counterpart in the factor that drew me to biology most forcefully - the historical factor. Biology isn't only about things interacting right now; it's about how they got to be the way they are; biology is an historical science. And this historical aspect is half of the fascination. It's where the really interesting questions are, because to know about history is to know about the "why" of something. Why do birds on islands tend to lose their ability to fly? Why did the Jurassic have the greatest explosion of dinosaur diversity? Why don't any birds give birth to live young? In answering these questions, scientists must try to reconstruct the past, and get some clue as to what the environment was like back then. This puts the system being considered - the species, genus, or some higher taxon - into an evolutionary context. Sometimes, we have enough details about the past to be able to test some of our hypotheses. Other times, the details are so sketchy and few and far between that speculations will have to do (until we obtain more evidence). But what's neat is that these things are amenable to human investigation. It's amazing that we can even ask such questions.
To sum up, what I'm trying to convey is that biology is fascinating for two reasons: its multi-faceted intricacy - both in terms of the systems involved, as well as the processes that brought them about - and for the the fact that it is the only natural science in which we can sensibly ask questions about function and purpose (properly qualified, of course; the teleological short-hand used by biologists when they ask "what is the flagellum for?" or "what is this organ for?" is understood to mean something about adaptive utility in the sense of differential reproduction). For that, biology just has to be, if not the most fascinating science, then one that everyone can at least warm to.
Well, a question I've been asked is why I find biology interesting. First I'd like to say that anyone who thinks that biology is "boring" is a mother-fucker who should immediately go and remove his testicles (I say "he", because only a male would say something so fucking stupid). People from all walks of life find biology fascinating. They might not know a heck of a lot about it, but they're capable of being transfixed by David Attenborough, for example, talking about the wonders of insect reproduction or the dynamics of lion prides. So this is something that people just find interesting, whatever their background. WHAT exactly is it, then, that people find interesting about biology? I suppose that it's the sheer variety of mechanisms, the overwhelming display of ingenuity exhibited by nature, and the intricacy of said mechanisms and ingenuity. Those are exactly the things that fascinate me, with one qualification: these things find their counterpart in the factor that drew me to biology most forcefully - the historical factor. Biology isn't only about things interacting right now; it's about how they got to be the way they are; biology is an historical science. And this historical aspect is half of the fascination. It's where the really interesting questions are, because to know about history is to know about the "why" of something. Why do birds on islands tend to lose their ability to fly? Why did the Jurassic have the greatest explosion of dinosaur diversity? Why don't any birds give birth to live young? In answering these questions, scientists must try to reconstruct the past, and get some clue as to what the environment was like back then. This puts the system being considered - the species, genus, or some higher taxon - into an evolutionary context. Sometimes, we have enough details about the past to be able to test some of our hypotheses. Other times, the details are so sketchy and few and far between that speculations will have to do (until we obtain more evidence). But what's neat is that these things are amenable to human investigation. It's amazing that we can even ask such questions.
To sum up, what I'm trying to convey is that biology is fascinating for two reasons: its multi-faceted intricacy - both in terms of the systems involved, as well as the processes that brought them about - and for the the fact that it is the only natural science in which we can sensibly ask questions about function and purpose (properly qualified, of course; the teleological short-hand used by biologists when they ask "what is the flagellum for?" or "what is this organ for?" is understood to mean something about adaptive utility in the sense of differential reproduction). For that, biology just has to be, if not the most fascinating science, then one that everyone can at least warm to.
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